Review update: Calvetica 2.0 for iPhone

The Calvetica ($2.99) developers have managed to release a major update in the time it takes for most other apps to fix a login bug. I don’t know how they did it, but I’m sure that liberal use of their own fantastic scheduling software couldn’t have hurt.

In any case, what I meant to say is that Calvetica 2.0 hit the App Store last Friday and it is amazing(sauce), although you may want to read my initial Calvetica review before going further.

Navigational improvements

The days of the week have been added to the the top of the calendar. I can’t stress enough how much of a difference this has made for scheduling. Otherwise, the Month view has changed very little in terms of layout.

The Day view, on the other hand, now has options to view your day’s events in a list view and a focused view limited by the working hours you set, as well as the all-hours (12am-11pm) view that shipped with Calvetica 1.0. I’ve found the working hours view (I set them from 9am-11pm) the most useful, since I never tend to schedule events before or after those times.

Calvetica 2.0 also allows you to show and hide calendars now, which is great, since the app now has multiple calendar support.

Scheduling improvements
I found Calvetica 1.0 was feature complete, but I really haven’t been a very busy person (summer as a student: game, write, eat, sleep). However, if you were missing basics like all-day events, event durations, and multiple calendar support, then worry not, because all those things are now in version 2.0. Changing the duration of an event is a little different than in other calendar apps, but I think it has been beautifully implemented.

There are also little changes, like better syncing of note and location details for an event, as well as the inclusion of the organizer, attendees, and status of an event for when you examine one of your appointments. I almost never view any of the latter details, but I’m sure they’ll be useful for users that don’t wear shorts to work.

The only change I’d question is the new Move Event mechanic. You can still tap and hold on an event and then select the “move” icon, but instead of pasting, you can now tap on the bullseye within any other time slot to move your event there. Well, it’s not actually “can” — you *have* to tap the bullseye head-on or you’ll simply cancel the move. I think that simply tapping anywhere within another time slot would have been a little more intuitive.

Miscellaneous improvements
There’s only one thing I wanted to mention in this section, and that’s that the badge for the app can now be turned off. Calvetica usually shows badge for event alarms despite the fact that it uses the default calendar alerts (it’s like being told twice), so I’m glad I can now stop the badge from badgering me.

Conclusion
I think Calvetica is a fantastic app, and it’s one that I find myself returning to throughout the day, if only to enjoy the clever and lovingly crafted interface. It’s incredibly lucky then that it also happens to house all of my appointments.